If you are the Facebook type, I invite you to become a fan of my page, or in the new Facebook parlance, “like” my page.

I found Chris Annunziata to be an extremely gifted mediator. His main strength in my opinion is his ability to accurately and quickly identify the critical issues in the case and then generate discussion on those issues. He is the kind of guy that people on both sides of the table will quickly trust and he is a very good listener. I recommend him unequivocally.

I’ve also re-posted that here.

Hat tip to local firm Fried and Bonder.  (I wouldn’t line a birdcage with the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, much less read it, so I might not have known about this for a few days.)

Faced with the financial burden of taking off from work several days, or even weeks, to sit on a jury some jurors are acting out in passive-aggressive ways.

Spurned in his effort to get out of jury duty, salesman Tony Prados turned his attention to the case that could cost him three weeks’ pay: A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was suing his former sergeant, alleging severe emotional distress inflicted by lewd and false innuendo that he was gay.

Prados, an ex-Marine, leaned forward in the jury box and asked in a let-me-get-this-straight tone of voice: “He’s brave enough to go out and get shot at by anyone but he couldn’t handle this?” he said of the locker-room taunting.

Fellow jury candidate Robert Avanesian, who had also unsuccessfully sought dismissal on financial hardship grounds, chimed in: “I think severe emotional distress is what is happening in Haiti. I don’t think you could have such severe emotional distress from that,” he said of the allegations in the deputy’s case.

The litigants in that case dismissed the jury and converted their case to a bench trial.

I will not insult your intelligence and suggest that every jury is going to rebel against the system or claim that the only way to fairly resolve your case is through ADR.  But the current economic crisis is something that lawyers should take into account when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their case.    As one Los Angeleno juror put it,

“Money is such an issue and to give money to someone for results of a case, it’s really important that they’re getting it for a real reason, an important reason.”

A lawyer preparing for trial should ask herself: Is the jury going to sympathize with that PI plaintiff or see a malingerer out to score on a dubious claim?  Are the jurors going to care about the corporation going after a “little guy” struggling to make a living or will they see a defendant trying to cheat the system?  Will the jury pay attention to several days or weeks of evidence and testimony when they are thinking whether they can keep the lights on or feed their kids with their $25 a day stipend instead of their regular paycheck?

If you really can’t answer those questions, then mediation or arbitration presents a better opportunity to limit those risks and get the case resolved.

A tip o’ the hat to Steve Mehta.

Sound familiar?  Sure.  It probably sounds just like many of the cases with which you deal.  If this were a business dispute, someone would probably suggest mediation.  Having a neutral go-between could ease the tensions and sort out the issues, identifying some common ground on which to build.

But it isn’t.

Who needs a mediator more than anyone else in our country right now?  The boobs Solons running our government. Partisanship on both sides of the political aisle has caused a stalemate in the debate over health insurance reform.  It’s a particularly sad day when the putative leader of the Free World utters the phrase, “”I don’t know that those gaps can be bridged.”

Unfortunately, as Sen. Bayh recently pointed out, the deal makers, the moderates, the pragmatic members of our government have abdicated any role to the demagogues on the fringes.It doesn’t matter what side you support.  Both sides need to move from their entrenched positions and discuss real options, not just talking points prepared by pointy headed people in Ivory Towers or tucked inside the Beltway.  Having a mediator involved would be very useful.

Please forgive my foray into politics but the analogy seemed quite obvious to me.

-Chris

On the other hand, I really have to wonder whether this improves the public image of mediators or simply causes the average person to think of a mediator who helps parties resolve mundane, trivial matters.

Just thinking out loud.

“I was amazed we accomplished what we did.”

“Chris’ calm and confident demeanor helped my clients and the opposing parties avoid the emotional outbursts that had frustrated all prior settlement discussions”

and

“I was really impressed by how quickly Chris understood the issues and personalities that had been a barrier to settlement, and how he brought to the table, not just an understanding of the law, but some practical solutions that neither side had considered.”

My friend, let’s call him Brett, recently changed firms, moving from one well known BigLaw firm to another. Today, when I visited LinkedIn, the popular social/business networking site, it suggested that I send Brett a note congratulating him on his move. So I did.  Of course, I had to give him some terribly un-politically correct ribbing about his new title of “Special” Counsel.

Moments after hitting send, I received an “out-of-office” email reply from Brett’s email address at  his former firm notifying me that “Brett is no longer with the Firm.”

Yes.  They capitalized “Firm” as if there was only one “Firm”.  Or they were trying to subtly reveal that they were the titular Firm in that John Grisham novel. Or maybe that they were a front for a shady government black ops agency.

The only two things he made clear were that he wasn’t gonna pay me and he wanted to come strapped.  That is, for the street-impaired, carrying a pistol.

I’m not sure his question about carrying in the Courthouse was a threat, more of a practical question from a man likely used to carrying a concealed weapon. This is Georgia.  Besides, in my experience, the people that make threats are the ones least likely to actually follow through with them.  Despite this, I alerted court security (and the insurance company lawyer).

The appointed time finally arrived.   The Sheriff’s Department quite generously, cautiously, and turns out, unnecessarily, assigned quite a large, armed deputy to shadow me.

The particulars of the mediation aren’t really important except to say it didn’t last very long.  For one thing, after I handed him the court referred mediation guidelines to review and sign, he told me he was illiterate.  I had no real reason to question his veracity, but when the defense told us the amount of the medical bills for this personal injury claim, he had no trouble quickly tripling that amount in his head to come up with a damages demand [Some lawyers use that as a very loose rule of thumb in Georgia to calculate damages].

Second, he had nothing with him.  I mean nothing.  No bills, no receipts, no records, no radiology reports, no police report.  Nothing.  Just the Notice telling him when and where to be, which he apparently figured out despite telling me he was illiterate.

Finally, he was either sadly mistaken or completely untruthful as he repeatedly claimed that he had not been compensated for his property damages.  The defense had all the necessary paperwork showing that he filed a claim but was not paid because he owed about as much on the truck as it was worth.

I am always wary of dealing with the typical pro se for various reasons.  First and foremost, just about anything I say can be wrongfully interpreted as legal advice or undue influence.  Secondly, as an experienced attorney, I am distrustful of anyone who can’t find a single lawyer to take his claim. I’ve seen some very dubious claims asserted by some very dubious attorneys.  But this guy took the cake.  He a) didn’t want to mediate the case in the first place; b) steadfastly refused to pay me; c) made a not-so-veiled threat about carrying a gun into the courthouse; and d)  claimed to be unable to read and sign any documents.

Thankfully, my practice of late has avoided any pro se parties.